Ticino recreational hunters as poachers across the border
Two licensed recreational hunters from Ticino have been exposed as poachers in Italy.
Armed with shotguns, calibre 12, and hunting dogs, the two wildlife killers (aged 60 and 42) crossed the border by car and set off stalking hares on Monte Bisbino on Italian soil.
There the Como provincial police intervened. The result: charges for the illegal importation of weapons.
Officially the two are considered “licensed recreational hunters”. But anyone who enters a foreign country armed, pays no heed to borders and pursues animals is a poacher. The fact that these men even hold hunting licences highlights the dilemma: a licence does not turn a lawbreaker into a friend of nature, but at best into a legalised animal killer.
Hunting fever instead of respect for the law
The police had been monitoring the area for some time, as border crossings had repeatedly occurred. A Ticino car parked nearby led the officers straight to the perpetrators. Confronted with the evidence, the men admitted their guilt, claiming they had not noticed which side of the border they were on. A transparent alibi.
Anyone wandering along hiking trails with loaded shotguns, without paying attention to the national border, proves above all one thing: irresponsibility.
Not an isolated case – hunting scandals are mounting
Just a few days earlier, the police in Grisons apprehended two Italian recreational hunters with weapons and equipment who had crossed the border into Switzerland. The pattern is clear: recreational hunters in a hunting frenzy cross borders as others cross footpaths. Animals are reduced to mere targets in the process.
The hunting lobby preaches responsibility, but practice shows the opposite. Whoever ignores borders also ignores closed seasons, species protection and safety. That such individuals are allowed to roam freely with shotguns poses a risk to animals, dogs, hikers and residents alike.
The case on Monte Bisbino makes it clear: a hunting licence is no guarantee of respect or safety, but often serves as a fig leaf for poaching. The two Ticino recreational hunters are not a one-off slip but a symptom of a system in which deadly weapons lie in the hands of hobbyists who place their lust for killing above any law.
According to IG Wild beim Wild, annual medical-psychological assessments are needed for hobby hunters following the example of Holland, as well as an upper age limit. The largest age group among recreational hunters is 65+, those with age-related weaknesses in thinking, vision, concentration and reaction, as well as deficits in education and training. From the age of 45, the number of accidents for humans and animals rises dramatically. The alarming reports of hunting accidents and fatal crimes involving hunters' weapons show: it is high time to abolish recreational hunting! Lethal firearms do not belong in the hands of senile recreational hunters, who can use them completely uncontrolled! Recreational hunters represent everything that is wrong in the world.
Recreational hunters live speciesism. Speciesism is comparable to racism and sexism, and that is neither a culture nor a tradition.
Especially with hobby hunting, it is essential to look very closely. Nowhere is there so much manipulation with untruths and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
